IBM has unveiled a new service that will allow corporations to analyze their CO2 emissions and energy usage at any level with the launch of Strategic Carbon Management.

IBM maintains that the Strategic Carbon Management program reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 50 percent – ranging from 15-20 percent for travel to up to 90 percent for datacenters. The software essentially gathers, manages and stores data about emissions and energy used.

The Strategic Carbon Management offering specifically helps clients:

• Determine what they want to achieve through their energy efficiency and environmental efforts;
• Integrate these energy and environmental strategies into their overall business strategies;
• Analyze financial costs and benefits for these initiatives.

“Companies are being driven to reduce their environmental impact and improve their energy efficiency — their customers and partners demand it, their financial performance depends on it, and governments increasingly require it,” said Eric Riddleberger, IBM’s business strategy consulting global leader, who heads up the company’s corporate social responsibility consulting efforts. “Piecemeal approaches yield piecemeal results, but setting a comprehensive strategy for emissions and energy management can provide real improvements and business value.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that after the election, Barack Obama’s advisors held a meeting with IBM to find out what kind of impact federal funding for the IT industry would accomplish.

IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano made it clear that investment in IT would create jobs and even got pretty specific on it saying that $10 billion for broadband network expansion would generate 498,000 jobs in one year. The same amount going into IT in the medical industry would generate 212,000 position and if it went to the creation of a smart grid it would result in 239,000 jobs.

The Wall Street Journal states that Palmisano acknowledged that any of those investments would require legislation and that he asked the Obama advisers what might be done directly without having to worry about Congress.

The result led Palmisano to suggest an executive order that would see all of the government’s data centers to be made “green” within three years.

With all the recent talk about how to make a green data center, this might be a great time to try and execute this plan.